Conman in Hell
by chitoryu15
Summary: The zombie apocalypse hits everyone hard. Sometimes, it can make anyone a decent man. Even a killer.


"Last call!"

The man sitting at the black felt table with several other professional card sharks sighed as he contemplated his hand. He'd been on this riverboat for about three days now, almost all of it spent swigging Jacks & Cokes and playing a vicious game of blackjack. He now knew that he had to end this game within half an hour. There were two black chips, five red chips, and a single purple chip in front of him. His total bet was $725, almost all of his wallet.

He studied his hand. Queen of hearts, five of hearts, and a five of diamonds. 20. He had counted the cards before and figured that there was pretty much zero chance of him getting any higher. Of course, he never came unprepared.

The man suddenly turned his head to the side and began coughing, loudly and violently. All the other players suddenly shifted their chairs back, the dealer gasping a little and covering his mouth. The CEDA warnings posted all around the ship suddenly came back to haunt them. As the man coughed, his hand dropped just below the table, out of everyone's eyesight, and another card slipped from his sleeve to his waiting hand. Hopefully, nobody noticed the switch.

He held his hand up and began to straighten, clearing his throat and taking another sip of his drink. "It's all right, fellas," he said. "You guys won't die yet. And neither will I!" He grinned and placed his hand down. Queen, five, five………_ace._

The men all stared for several moments, before putting their own hands down. None of them even came close to beating his hand. The conman grinned and began to reach his hand forward to take in all the chips in front of him. It was an amazing haul, about $5000. He would be eating well tonight.

Suddenly, a hand shot out and caught his wrist in an iron grip. He looked up to see the dealer, steely-eyed and keeping his hand locked right where it was. The man's eyes floated downward to the dealer's card hand. The dealer slowly began to place his hand down, right next to the cheater's. Sitting right next to his ace of spades was another one.

"Nick Swanson, you are a cheating bastard," the dealer said. The other card sharks began to glare and take their chips back. A few angry curses were muttered, along with some sighs of relief. They hadn't lost.

Nick's right hand dropped to his side, and slipped into his pocket. "Now gentlemen, it was an honest mistake. Maybe you guys have a bad deck or something, but I can guarantee that I did _not_ cheat. I'm personally very off--"

Nick stopped mid-stream and swung his hand forward. The brass knuckles that he had slipped onto his hand caught the dealer square above the eye, opening a nasty cut. He fell back into the crowd surrounding the table, several of the spectators catching him as he disappeared into the sea of people. The other players all jumped back to avoid the swing, and Nick took advantage of this to leap from his chair and begin sprinting for the door.

One of the bouncers stepped in front of the door, blocking his way out. Some more passerby and players had stopped what they were doing and began surrounding him. Nick's eyes darted all around, and finally fell onto a pile of multicolored chips on the table next to him. His free hand shot out and grabbed a handful, tossing them in the bouncer's face. The bouncer closed his eyes and held his arm up to protect his face from the flying chips, his other arm swinging out blindly.

Nick ducked the haymaker and swung his fist upward into the bouncer's groin. His opponent exhaled sharply and doubled over, allowing Nick to bring a double-fisted hammer blow onto the back of his neck. The ape dropped, half-conscious and clearing the path.

Fortunately for Nick, the boat was docked at the time, and he was able to sprint about fifty feet to the boarding ramp. He turned his head for not even half a second, long enough to see that a good dozen people in various states of anger were on his tail, and began running down the ramp. He shoved one man, who Nick had no clue was an oil tycoon and billionaire, out of his way, nearly sending him into the river, and ran right out of the dock and into the city of Savannah, Georgia.

Eventually, he stopped running, leaning against the wall of a nearby warehouse and panting. Somehow, he had managed to lose his pursuers. _Dammit, that's another screw-up_ he thought to himself. He had been slipping lately; that was the second time in a row that he had to make a hasty exit to avoid facing jail time (he had currently amassed fifteen months in total jail time in the past five years of his life, every time getting out on bail or spending only a short time before getting off for good behavior). He was quite fortunate to have enough street smarts to slip away from almost all of his problems, including court dates.

As he began to catch his breath, Nick looked across the street and saw a towering hotel. He checked his wallet and found that he still had $200 left, enough for a night or two. He groaned from the exhaustion and began walking toward the hotel.

* * *

"Damn place is a ripoff" he muttered as he put the key into the lock on his room. He only had enough cash for one night at the place, and he had just enough for the bus ride back to Augusta, where he had left his car in the care of a friend as he boarded the riverboat.

It was already midnight as he stripped down to his black boxers and crawled into bed. He would sleep off the exhaustion and be gone before noon in the morning.


End file.
